musica ricercata

HELLENIKA - Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna

The interest of MUSICA RICERCATA in music from antiquity is two-fold.
On the one hand our studies focus on ancient Greek music theory, and on
the elaboration of rare ancient musical fragments (Hellenika) arranged
in the form of a ‘suite’ by Michael Stüve. On the other
hand, they underline the importance classical culture has played in European
musical development, resulting four hundred years ago in the birth of
a new musical language (later defined as ‘seconda
pratica’) and of opera (cfr. V. GALILEI, Dialogo
della musica antica et della moderna, 1581).

Following the performances of ‘Hellenika’ presented together
with early Baroque music inspired by classical antiquity at the Festival
Internazionale di Monfalcone and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1996,
the project was selected in 1996 and 1997 by the European Commission within
its prestigious cultural programmes ‘Kaleidoscope’. Further
concert performances relevant to the project were promoted by the Directorate
of Artistic Patrimony in Florence during the ‘Settimana dei Beni
Culturali’ 1997 and by the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa during
the season of ‘Concerti della Normale 1997-1998’.‘Hellenika’
has also toured with great critical success in Kerkyra (Corfu 1997), where
MUSICA RICERCATA was invited by the Directorate of Byzantium Arts to perform
with the ensemble ‘The Hellenic Music Archives’ of Athens,
as well as in Vienna (1997, 1998) where the group played with the Capella
Academica Wien, directed by Stüve himself.

The project also brought about an intense collaboration with the Archaeological
Museum of Florence, thus instigating a series of concerts in the museum.
It has also led to various didactic activities, in particular seminars
and seminar-concerts held at various prestigious institutions such as
the Conservatory ‘Luigi Cherubini’, the Casa Buonarroti Museum
and the Laurenziana, Riccardiana and Nazionale Centrale
libraries of Florence, which preserve a number of important sixteenth-century
documents relating to music from antiquity and the birth of opera in Florence.